Famous Modern Ghost Stories by Various

V >> Various >> Famous Modern Ghost Stories

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

In addition to the changes in his appearance, Lazarus' temper seemed to
have undergone a transformation, but this circumstance startled no one
and attracted no attention. Before his death Lazarus had always been
cheerful and carefree, fond of laughter and a merry joke. It was because
of this brightness and cheerfulness, with not a touch of malice and
darkness, that the Master had grown so fond of him. But now Lazarus had
grown grave and taciturn, he never jested, himself, nor responded with
laughter to other people's jokes; and the words which he uttered, very
infrequently, were the plainest, most ordinary, and necessary words, as
deprived of depth and significance, as those sounds with which animals
express pain and pleasure, thirst and hunger. They were the words that
one can say all one's life, and yet they give no indication of what
pains and gladdens the depths of the soul.

Thus, with the face of a corpse which for three days had been under the
heavy sway of death, dark and taciturn, already appallingly transformed,
but still unrecognized by anyone in his new self, he was sitting at the
feasting table, among friends and relatives, and his gorgeous nuptial
garments glittered with yellow gold and bloody scarlet. Broad waves of
jubilation, now soft, now tempestuously sonorous surged around him; warm
glances of love were reaching out for his face, still cold with the
coldness of the grave; and a friend's warm palm caressed his blue, heavy
hand. And music played the tympanum and the pipe, the cithara and the
harp. It was as though bees hummed, grasshoppers chirped and birds
warbled over the happy house of Mary and Martha.

II

One of the guests incautiously lifted the veil. By a thoughtless word he
broke the serene charm and uncovered the truth in all its naked
ugliness. Ere the thought formed itself in his mind, his lips uttered
with a smile:

"Why dost thou not tell us what happened yonder?"

And all grew silent, startled by the question. It was as if it occurred
to them only now that for three days Lazarus had been dead, and they
looked at him, anxiously awaiting his answer. But Lazarus kept silence.

"Thou dost not wish to tell us,"--wondered the man, "is it so terrible
yonder?"

And again his thought came after his words. Had it been otherwise, he
would not have asked this question, which at that very moment oppressed
his heart with its insufferable horror. Uneasiness seized all present,
and with a feeling of heavy weariness they awaited Lazarus' words, but
he was silent, sternly and coldly, and his eyes were lowered. And as if
for the first time, they noticed the frightful blueness of his face and
his repulsive obesity. On the table, as though forgotten by Lazarus,
rested his bluish-purple wrist, and to this all eyes turned, as if it
were from it that the awaited answer was to come. The musicians were
still playing, but now the silence reached them too, and even as water
extinguishes scattered embers, so were their merry tunes extinguished in
the silence. The pipe grew silent; the voices of the sonorous tympanum
and the murmuring harp died away; and as if the strings had burst, the
cithara answered with a tremulous, broken note. Silence.

"Thou dost not wish to say?" repeated the guest, unable to check his
chattering tongue. But the stillness remained unbroken, and the
bluish-purple hand rested motionless. And then he stirred slightly and
everyone felt relieved. He lifted up his eyes, and lo! straightway
embracing everything in one heavy glance, fraught with weariness and
horror, he looked at them,--Lazarus who had arisen from the dead.

It was the third day since Lazarus had left the grave. Ever since then
many had experienced the pernicious power of his eye, but neither those
who were crushed by it forever, nor those who found the strength to
resist in it the primordial sources of life,--which is as mysterious as
death,--never could they explain the horror which lay motionless in the
depth of his black pupils. Lazarus looked calmly and simply with no
desire to conceal anything, but also with no intention to say anything;
he looked coldly, as he who is infinitely indifferent to those alive.
Many carefree people came close to him without noticing him, and only
later did they learn with astonishment and fear who that calm stout man
was, that walked slowly by, almost touching them with his gorgeous and
dazzling garments. The sun did not cease shining, when he was looking,
nor did the fountain hush its murmur, and the sky overhead remained
cloudless and blue. But the man under the spell of his enigmatical look
heard no more the fountain and saw not the sky overhead. Sometimes, he
wept bitterly, sometimes he tore his hair and in frenzy called for help;
but more often it came to pass that apathetically and quietly he began
to die, and so he languished many years, before everybody's very eyes,
wasted away, colorless, flabby, dull, like a tree, silently drying up in
a stony soil. And of those who gazed at him, the ones who wept madly,
sometimes felt again the stir of life; the others never.

"So thou dost not wish to tell us what thou hast seen yonder?" repeated
the man. But now his voice was impassive and dull, and deadly gray
weariness showed in Lazarus' eyes. And deadly gray weariness covered
like dust all the faces, and with dull amazement the guests stared at
each other and did not understand wherefore they had gathered here and
sat at the rich table. The talk ceased. They thought it was time to go
home, but could not overcome the flaccid lazy weariness which glued
their muscles, and they kept on sitting there, yet apart and torn away
from each other, like pale fires scattered over a dark field.

But the musicians were paid to play and again they took their
instruments and again tunes full of studied mirth and studied sorrow
began to flow and to rise. They unfolded the customary melody but the
guests hearkened in dull amazement. Already they knew not wherefore is
it necessary, and why is it well, that people should pluck strings,
inflate their cheeks, blow in thin pipes, and produce a bizarre,
many-voiced noise.

"What bad music," said someone.

The musicians took offense and left. Following them, the guests left one
after another, for night was already come. And when placid darkness
encircled them and they began to breathe with more ease, suddenly
Lazarus' image loomed up before each one in formidable radiance: the
blue face of a corpse, grave-clothes gorgeous and resplendent, a cold
look, in the depths of which lay motionless an unknown horror. As though
petrified, they were standing far apart, and darkness enveloped them,
but in the darkness blazed brighter and brighter the supernatural vision
of him who for three days had been under the enigmatical sway of death.
For three days had he been dead: thrice had the sun risen and set, but
he had been dead; children had played, streams murmured over pebbles,
the wayfarer had lifted up hot dust in the highroad,--but he had been
dead. And now he is again among them,--touches them,--looks at
them,--looks at them! and through the black discs of his pupils, as
through darkened glass, stares the unknowable Yonder.

III

No one was taking care of Lazarus, for no friends no relatives were left
to him, and the great desert which encircled the holy city, came near
the very threshold of his dwelling. And the desert entered his house,
and stretched on his couch, like a wife and extinguished the fires. No
one was taking care of Lazarus. One after the other, his sisters--Mary
and Martha--forsook him. For a long while Martha was loath to abandon
him, for she knew not who would feed him and pity him, she wept and
prayed. But one night, when the wind was roaming in the desert and with
a hissing sound the cypresses were bending over the roof, she dressed
noiselessly and secretly left the house. Lazarus probably heard the door
slam; it banged against the side-post under the gusts of the desert
wind, but he did not rise to go out and to look at her that was
abandoning him. All the night long the cypresses hissed over his head
and plaintively thumped the door, letting in the cold, greedy desert.

Like a leper he was shunned by everyone, and it was proposed to tie a
bell to his neck, as is done with lepers, to warn people against sudden
meetings. But someone remarked, growing frightfully pale, that it would
be too horrible if by night the moaning of Lazarus' bell were suddenly
heard under the windows,--and so the project was abandoned.

And since he did not take care of himself, he would probably have
starved to death, had not the neighbors brought him food in fear of
something that they sensed but vaguely. The food was brought to him by
children; they were not afraid of Lazarus, nor did they mock him with
naive cruelty, as children are wont to do with the wretched and
miserable. They were indifferent to him, and Lazarus answered them with
the same coldness; he had no desire to caress the black little curls,
and to look into their innocent shining eyes. Given to Time and to the
Desert, his house was crumbling down, and long since had his famishing,
lowing goats wandered away to the neighboring pastures. And his bridal
garments became threadbare. Ever since that happy day, when the
musicians played, he had worn them unaware of the difference of the new
and the worn. The bright colors grew dull and faded; vicious dogs and
the sharp thorn of the Desert turned the tender fabric into rags.

By day, when the merciless sun slew all things alive, and even scorpions
sought shelter under stones and writhed there in a mad desire to sting,
he sat motionless under the sunrays, his blue face and the uncouth,
bushy beared lifted up, bathing in the fiery flood.

When people still talked to him, he was once asked:

"Poor Lazarus, does it please thee to sit thus and to stare at the
sun?"

And he had answered:

"Yes, it does."

So strong, it seemed, was the cold of his three days' grave, so deep the
darkness, that there was no heat on earth to warm Lazarus, nor a
splendor that could brighten the darkness of his eyes. That is what came
to the mind of those who spoke to Lazarus, and with a sigh they left
him.

And when the scarlet, flattened globe would lower, Lazarus would set out
for the desert and walk straight toward the sun, as though striving to
reach it. He always walked straight toward the sun and those who tried
to follow him and to spy upon what he was doing at night in the desert,
retained in their memory the black silhouette of a tall stout man
against the red background of an enormous flattened disc. Night pursued
them with her horrors, and so they did not learn of Lazarus' doings in
the desert, but the vision of the black on red was forever branded on
their brain. Just as a beast with a splinter in its eye furiously rubs
its muzzle with its paws, so they too foolishly rubbed their eyes, but
what Lazarus had given was indelible, and Death alone could efface it.

But there were people who lived far away, who never saw Lazarus and knew
of him only by report. With daring curiosity, which is stronger than
fear and feeds upon it, with hidden mockery, they would come to Lazarus
who was sitting in the sun and enter into conversation with him. By
this time Lazarus' appearance had changed for the better and was not so
terrible. The first minute they snapped their fingers and thought of how
stupid the inhabitants of the holy city were; but when the short talk
was over and they started homeward, their looks were such that the
inhabitants of the holy city recognized them at once and said:

"Look, there is one more fool on whom Lazarus has set his eye,"--and
they shook their heads regretfully, and lifted up their arms.

There came brave, intrepid warriors, with tinkling weapons; happy youths
came with laughter and song; busy tradesmen, jingling their money, ran
in for a moment, and haughty priests leaned their crosiers against
Lazarus' door, and they were all strangely changed, as they came back.
The same terrible shadow swooped down upon their souls and gave a new
appearance to the old familiar world.

Those who still had the desire to speak, expressed their feelings thus:

"All things tangible and visible grew hollow, light, and
transparent,--similar to lightsome shadows in the darkness of night;

"for, that great darkness, which holds the whole cosmos, was dispersed
neither by the sun or by the moon and the stars, but like an immense
black shroud enveloped the earth and, like a mother, embraced it;

"it penetrated all the bodies, iron and stone,--and the particles of
the bodies, having lost their ties, grew lonely; and it penetrated into
the depth of the particles, and the particles of particles became
lonely;

"for that great void, which encircles the cosmos, was not filled by
things visible: neither by the sun, nor by the moon and the stars, but
reigned unrestrained, penetrating everywhere, severing body from body,
particle from particle;

"in the void hollow trees spread hollow roots threatening a fantastic
fall; temples, palaces, and horses loomed up and they were hollow; and
in the void men moved about restlessly but they were light and hollow
like shadows;

"for, Time was no more, and the beginning of all things came near their
end: the building was still being built, and builders were still
hammering away, and its ruins were already seen and the void in its
place; the man was still being born, but already funeral candles were
burning at his head, and now they were extinguished, and there was the
void in place of the man and of the funeral candles.

"and wrapped by void and darkness the man in despair trembled in the
face of the Horror of the Infinite."

Thus spake the men who had still a desire to speak. But, surely, much
more could have told those who wished not to speak, and died in
silence.

IV

At that time there lived in Rome a renowned sculptor. In clay, marble,
and bronze he wrought bodies of gods and men, and such was their beauty,
that people called them immortal. But he himself was discontented and
asserted that there was something even more beautiful, that he could not
embody either in marble or in bronze. "I have not yet gathered the
glimmers of the moon, nor have I my fill of sunshine," he was wont to
say, "and there is no soul in my marble, no life in my beautiful
bronze." And when on moonlight nights he slowly walked along the road,
crossing the black shadows of cypresses, his white tunic glittering in
the moonshine, those who met him would laugh in a friendly way and say:

"Art thou going to gather moonshine, Aurelius? Why then didst thou not
fetch baskets?"

And he would answer, laughing and pointing to his eyes:

"Here are the baskets wherein I gather the sheen of the moon and the
glimmer of the sun."

And so it was: the moon glimmered in his eyes and the sun sparkled
therein. But he could not translate them into marble and therein lay the
serene tragedy of his life.

He was descended from an ancient patrician race, had a good wife and
children, and suffered from no want.

When the obscure rumor about Lazarus reached him, he consulted his wife
and friends and undertook the far journey to Judea to see him who had
miraculously risen from the dead. He was somewhat weary in those days
and he hoped that the road would sharpen his blunted senses. What was
said of Lazarus did not frighten him: he had pondered much over Death,
did not like it, but he disliked also those who confused it with life.

"In this life,--life and beauty;
beyond,--Death, the enigmatical"--

thought he, and there is no better thing for a man to do than to delight
in life and in the beauty of all things living. He had even a
vainglorious desire to convince Lazarus of the truth of his own view and
restore his soul to life, as his body had been restored. This seemed so
much easier because the rumors, shy and strange, did not render the
whole truth about Lazarus and but vaguely warned against something
frightful.

Lazarus had just risen from the stone in order to follow the sun which
was setting in the desert, when a rich Roman attended by an armed slave,
approached him and addressed him in a sonorous tone of voice:

"Lazarus!"

And Lazarus beheld a superb face, lit with glory, and arrayed in fine
clothes, and precious stones sparkling in the sun. The red light lent to
the Roman's face and head the appearance of gleaming bronze--that also
Lazarus noticed. He resumed obediently his place and lowered his weary
eyes.

"Yes, thou art ugly, my poor Lazarus,"--quietly said the Roman, playing
with his golden chain; "thou art even horrible, my poor friend; and
Death was not lazy that day when thou didst fall so heedlessly into his
hands. But thou art stout, and, as the great Caesar used to say, fat
people are not ill-tempered; to tell the truth, I don't understand why
men fear thee. Permit me to spend the night in thy house; the hour is
late, and I have no shelter."

Never had anyone asked Lazarus' hospitality.

"I have no bed," said he.

"I am somewhat of a soldier and I can sleep sitting," the Roman
answered. "We shall build a fire."

"I have no fire."

"Then we shall have our talk in the darkness, like two friends. I think
thou wilt find a bottle of wine."

"I have no wine."

The Roman laughed.

"Now I see why thou art so somber and dislikest thy second life. No
wine! Why, then we shall do without it: there are words that make the
head go round better than the Falernian."

By a sign he dismissed the slave, and they remained all alone. And again
the sculptor started speaking, but it was as if, together with the
setting sun, life had left his words; and they grew pale and hollow, as
if they staggered on unsteady feet, as if they slipped and fell down,
drunk with the heavy lees of weariness and despair. And black chasms
grew up between the words--like far-off hints of the great void and the
great darkness.

"Now I am thy guest, and thou wilt not be unkind to me, Lazarus!"--said
he. "Hospitality is the duty even of those who for three days were dead.
Three days, I was told, thou didst rest in the grave. There it must be
cold ... and that is whence comes thy ill habit of going without fire
and wine. As to me, I like fire; it grows dark here so rapidly.... The
lines of thy eyebrows and forehead are quite, quite interesting: they
are like ruins of strange palaces, buried in ashes after an earthquake.
But why dost thou wear such ugly and queer garments? I have seen
bridegrooms in thy country, and they wear such clothes--are they not
funny--and terrible.... But art thou a bridegroom?"

The sun had already disappeared, a monstrous black shadow came running
from the east--it was as if gigantic bare feet began rumbling on the
sand, and the wind sent a cold wave along the backbone.

"In the darkness thou seemest still larger, Lazarus, as if thou hast
grown stouter in these moments. Dost thou feed on darkness, Lazarus? I
would fain have a little fire--at least a little fire, a little fire. I
feel somewhat chilly, your nights are so barbarously cold.... Were it
not so dark, I should say that thou wert looking at me, Lazarus. Yes, it
seems to me, thou art looking.... Why, thou art looking at me, I feel
it,--but there thou art smiling."

Night came, and filled the air with heavy blackness.

"How well it will be, when the sun will rise to-morrow anew.... I am a
great sculptor, thou knowest; that is how my friends call me. I create.
Yes, that is the word ... but I need daylight. I give life to the cold
marble, I melt sonorous bronze in fire, in bright hot fire.... Why didst
thou touch me with thy hand?"

"Come"--said Lazarus--"Thou art my guest."

And they went to the house. And a long night enveloped the earth.

The slave, seeing that his master did not come, went to seek him, when
the sun was already high in the sky. And he beheld his master side by
side with Lazarus: in profound silence were they sitting right under the
dazzling and scorching sunrays and looking upward. The slave began to
weep and cried out:

"My master, what has befallen thee, master?"

The very same day the sculptor left for Rome. On the way Aurelius was
pensive and taciturn, staring attentively at everything--the men, the
ship, the sea, as though trying to retain something. On the high sea a
storm burst upon them, and all through it Aurelius stayed on the deck
and eagerly scanned the seas looming near and sinking with a thud.

At home his friends were frightened at the change which had taken place
in Aurelius, but he calmed them, saying meaningly:

"I have found it."

And without changing the dusty clothes he wore on his journey, he fell
to work, and the marble obediently resounded under his sonorous hammer.
Long and eagerly worked he, admitting no one, until one morning he
announced that the work was ready and ordered his friends to be
summoned, severe critics and connoisseurs of art. And to meet them he
put on bright and gorgeous garments, that glittered with yellow
gold--and--scarlet byssus.

"Here is my work," said he thoughtfully.

His friends glanced and a shadow of profound sorrow covered their faces.
It was something monstrous, deprived of all the lines and shapes
familiar to the eye, but not without a hint at some new, strange image.

On a thin, crooked twig, or rather on an ugly likeness of a twig rested
askew a blind, ugly, shapeless, outspread mass of something utterly and
inconceivably distorted, a mad leap of wild and bizarre fragments, all
feebly and vainly striving to part from one another. And, as if by
chance, beneath one of the wildly-rent salients a butterfly was chiseled
with divine skill, all airy loveliness, delicacy, and beauty, with
transparent wings, which seemed to tremble with an impotent desire to
take flight.

"Wherefore this wonderful butterfly, Aurelius?" said somebody
falteringly.

"I know not"--was the sculptor's answer.

But it was necessary to tell the truth, and one of his friends who loved
him best said firmly:

"This is ugly, my poor friend. It must be destroyed. Give me the
hammer."

And with two strokes he broke the monstrous man into pieces, leaving
only the infinitely delicate butterfly untouched.

From that time on Aurelius created nothing. With profound indifference
he looked at marble and bronze, and on his former divine works, where
everlasting beauty rested. With the purpose of arousing his former
fervent passion for work and, awakening his deadened soul, his friends
took him to see other artists' beautiful works,--but he remained
indifferent as before, and the smile did not warm up his tightened lips.
And only after listening to lengthy talks about beauty, he would retort
wearily and indolently:

"But all this is a lie."

And by the day, when the sun was shining, he went into his magnificent,
skilfully built garden and having found a place without shadow, he
exposed his bare head to the glare and heat. Red and white butterflies
fluttered around; from the crooked lips of a drunken satyr, water
streamed down with a splash into a marble cistern, but he sat
motionless and silent,--like a pallid reflection of him who, in the
far-off distance, at the very gates of the stony desert, sat under the
fiery sun.

V

And now it came to pass that the great, deified Augustus himself
summoned Lazarus. The imperial messengers dressed him gorgeously, in
solemn nuptial clothes, as if Time had legalized them, and he was to
remain until his very death the bridegroom of an unknown bride. It was
as though an old, rotting coffin had been gilt and furnished with new,
gay tassels. And men, all in trim and bright attire, rode after him, as
if in bridal procession indeed, and those foremost trumpeted loudly,
bidding people to clear the way for the emperor's messengers. But
Lazarus' way was deserted: his native land cursed the hateful name of
him who had miraculously risen from the dead, and people scattered at
the very news of his appalling approach. The solitary voice of the brass
trumpets sounded in the motionless air, and the wilderness alone
responded with its languid echo.

Then Lazarus went by sea. And his was the most magnificently arrayed and
the most mournful ship that ever mirrored itself in the azure waves of
the Mediterranean Sea. Many were the travelers aboard, but like a tomb
was the ship, all silence and stillness, and the despairing water sobbed
at the steep, proudly curved prow. All alone sat Lazarus exposing his
head to the blaze of the sun, silently listening to the murmur and
splash of the wavelets, and afar seamen and messengers were sitting, a
vague group of weary shadows. Had the thunder burst and the wind
attacked the red sails, the ships would probably have perished, for none
of those aboard had either the will or the strength to struggle for
life. With a supreme effort some mariners would reach the board and
eagerly scan the blue, transparent deep, hoping to see a naiad's pink
shoulder flash in the hollow of an azure wave, or a drunken gay centaur
dash along and in frenzy splash the wave with his hoof. But the sea was
like a wilderness, and the deep was dumb and deserted.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21